The Sound of Thunder meets Huckleberry Finn
by TaylorLeprechaun
Summary: "The Sound of Thunder," a short story by Ray Bradbury, meets "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." In this story, the first cousin once removed of Eckels, Johnson, goes to the 1850s to hunt a runaway slave named Simon, he accidentally kills Jim though. What happens to the timeline? Read to find out! (This was my IOP for my IB SL Year 1 English Class)


The Sound of Thunder meets Huckleberry Finn

The sign on the wall seemed to quaver under a film of sliding warm water. Johnson felt his eyelids blink over his stare, and the sign burned in this momentary darkness:

TIME SAFARI, INC.  
SAFARIS TO ANY YEAR IN THE PAST.  
YOU NAME THE ANIMAL.  
WE TAKE YOU THERE.  
YOU SHOOT IT.

"So you're the, um, what of that Eckels guy?" asked Mr. Travis.

"I'm his f-f-first cousin once removed," Johnson replied. "A-are you s-s-sure this is safe? I m-m-mean the going back in time thing?"

"We do not guarantee anything," said the official, "only that you can shoot at what you pay for."

"I'll be your safari guide today. You shoot what I tell you and when," said Mr. Travis. "If you don't then you will be in serious trouble here. So be smart, and don't screw up."

"Unbelievable." Johnson muttered. "A real Time Machine." He shook his head. "M-m-makes you think, if the Czech Republic hadn't b-b-been taken over by Slovenia that th-th-this machine w-w-wouldn't even exist."

"Yeah," the official said. "Wouldn't have believed that the Czech's were hiding blueprints for a time machine. But here it is now. Now, about your hunt."

"Yes?"

"You wanted to hunt a runaway slave in the 1850s yes?"

"Yessir."

"Alrighty then. We are going back to 1852, to shoot a runaway slave named Simon."

"Just don't screw up," Mr. Travis interjected.

Johnson grew angry. "What? Are you trying to say I am unable to do it, huh?!"

"Well, yes. We don't want anyone going who'll panic at the first shot."

"Good luck," said the official.

They all moved silently across the room, taking their guns with them, toward the Machine, toward the silver metal and the roaring light.

First a day and then a ngith and then a day nd then a night. A week, a month, a year, a decade! A.D. 2055. A.D. 2019. 1999! 1957! Gone! The Machine roared.

They put on their oxygen helmets and tested the intercoms.

Johnson started to tremble, feeling a bit nervous. Travis, the Safari Leader, his new assistant, Lesperance, and two other hunters, Billings and Kramer, were in the Machine with Johnson.

The Machine began to slow its pace and stopped.

As they stepped out of the Time Machine Mr. Travis pointed to a metal path that stuck off towards a house in the middle of a farm.

"And that," he said, "is the Path, laid by Time Safari for your use. It floats six inches above the earth. Doesn't touch so much as one grass blade, flower, or tree. It's an anti-gravity metal. Its purpose is to keep you from touching this world of the past in any way. Stay on the Path. Don't go off it. I repeat. Don't go off. For any reason! If you fall off, there's a penalty. And don't shoot any animal we don't okay."

"Why?" asked Johnson.

"Don't you know what your, wha'd you call 'im, uh, cousin did? He stepped off the path and changed entire English Language. Took us weeks to fix his mistake!" Billings shouted.

"We don't want to change the Future, again. We don't belong here in the Past. The government doesn't like us here. We have to pay big graft to keep our franchise. A Time Machine is finicky business. Not knowing it, we might kill an important animal, a small bird, a roach, a flower even, thus destroying an important link in a growing species."

"I am still unclear as to how one little step off the path could change the entire English Language."

"All right," Travis said, "say we accidentally kill one mouse here. That means all the future families of this one particular mouse are destroyed, right?"

"I would believe so."

"And all the families of the families of the families of that one mouse! With a stamp of your foot, you annihilate first one, then a dozen, then a thousand, a million, a billion possible mice!"

"So they're dead," said Johnson, "what of it?"

"So what?" Travis snorted quietly. "Well, what about the foxes that'll need those mice to survive? For want of ten mice, a fox dies. For want of ten foxes a lion starves. For want of a lion, all manner of insects, vultures, infinite billions of life forms are thrown into chaos and destruction. Eventually it all boils down to this: fifty-nine million years later, a caveman, one of a dozen on the entire world, goes hunting wild boar or saber-toothed tiger for food. But you, friend, have stepped on all the tigers in that region. By stepping on one single mouse. So the caveman starves. And the caveman, please note, is not just any expendable man, no! He is an entire future nation. From his loins would have sprung ten sons. From their loins one hundred sons, and thus onward to a civilization. Destroy this one man, and you destroy a race, a people, an entire history of life. It is comparable to slaying some of Adam's grandchildren. The stomp of your foot, on one mouse, could start an earthquake, the effects of which could shake our earth and destinies down through Time, to their very foundations. With the death of that one caveman, a billion others yet unborn are throttled in the womb. Perhaps Rome never rises on its seven hills. Perhaps Europe is forever a dark forest, and only Asia waxes healthy and teeming. Step on a mouse and you crush the Pyramids. Step on a mouse and you leave your print, like a Grand Canyon, across Eternity. Queen Elizabeth might never be born, Washington might not cross the Delaware, there might never be a United States at all. So be careful. Stay on the Path. Never step off!"

"I see… then it wouldn't pay for us even to touch the grass?"

"Correct. Crushing certain plants could add up infinitesimally. A little error here would multiply in sixty million years, all out of proportion. Of course maybe our theory is wrong. Maybe Time can't be changed by us. Or maybe it can be changed only in little subtle ways. A dead mouse here makes an insect imbalance there, a population disproportion later, a bad harvest further on, a depression, mass starvation, and finally, a change in social temperament in far-flung countries. Something much more subtle, like that. Perhaps only a soft breath, a whisper, a hair, pollen on the air, such a slight, slight change that unless you looked close you wouldn't see it. Who knows? Who really can say he knows? We don't know. We're guessing. But until we do know for certain whether our messing around in Time can make a big roar or a little rustle in history, we're being careful. This Machine, this Path, your clothing and bodies, were sterilized, as you know, before the journey. We wear these oxygen helmets so we can't introduce our bacteria into an ancient atmosphere."

"So how do we know who to shoot."

"Well, we studied Simon. He dies here today of a gunshot wound from a slave hunter tonight around 8 PM. Which is why killing him by shooting him will have no effect on the time line. Just don't miss."

'Did I give you the letter?' asked a boy

'What letter?' replied a woman sitting at a table with him

'The one I got yesterday out of the post-office.'

'No, you didn't give me no letter.'

'Well, I must a forgot it.'

So he rummaged his pockets, and then went off somewhere where he had laid it down, and fetched it, and give it to her. She says:

'Why, it's from St. Petersburg — it's from Sis.'

Out of nowhere a young white boy, being carried by a man who appeared to be a doctor, and a black man in a dress with his hands tied behind his back.

'Oh, he's dead, he's dead, I know he's dead!"

The white boy turned his head a bit.

'He's alive, thank God! And that's enough!'

All of the people went inside, cussing at the black man a lot.

Once they were all inside, the doctor started trying to tell everyone not to be mean to the black man.

'Don't be no rougher on him than you're obleeged to, because he ain't a bad nigger. When I got to where I found the boy I see I couldn't cut the bullet out without some help, and he warn't in no condition for me to leave to go and get help; and he got a little worse and a little worse, and after a long time he went out of his head, and wouldn't let me come a-nigh him any more, and said if I chalked his raft he'd kill me, and no end of wild foolishness like that, and I see I couldn't do anything at all with him; so I says, I got to have HELP somehow; and the minute I says it out crawls this nigger from somewheres and says he'll help, and he done it, too, and done it very well. Of course I judged he must be a runaway nigger, and there I WAS! and there I had to stick right straight along all the rest of the day and all night. It was a fix, I tell you! I had a couple of patients with the chills, and of course I'd of liked to run up to town and see them, but I dasn't, because the nigger might get away, and then I'd be to blame; and yet never a skiff come close enough for me to hail. So there I had to stick plumb until daylight this morning; and I never see a nigger that was a better nuss or faithfuller, and yet he was risking his freedom to do it, and was all tired out, too, and I see plain enough he'd been worked main hard lately. I liked the nigger for that; I tell you, gentlemen, a nigger like that is worth a thousand dollars — and kind treatment, too. I had everything I needed, and the boy was doing as well there as he would a done at home — better, maybe, because it was so quiet; but there I WAS, with both of 'm on my hands, and there I had to stick till about dawn this morning; then some men in a skiff come by, and as good luck would have it the nigger was setting by the pallet with his head propped on his knees sound asleep; so I motioned them in quiet, and they slipped up on him and grabbed him and tied him before he knowed what he was about, and we never had no trouble. And the boy being in a kind of a flighty sleep, too, we muffled the oars and hitched the raft on, and towed her over very nice and quiet, and the nigger never made the least row nor said a word from the start. He ain't no bad nigger, gentlemen; that's what I think about him.'

"Sounds like this black guy is a hero to me," Billings whispered to Lesperance.

"Hold up," Travis said. "If Simon is supposed to die around 8 tonight, then why is the sun so high in the sky?"

Billings and Kramer went over to the Time Machine.

"We set the Machine for 7 days too early!" Billings yelled.

"Everyone come back!" Kramer added.

They all trudged to the Machine.

"I ought to smack you," Travis said, threatening Kramer.

They all climbed into the Machine and went forwards 7 more days through time.

They all emerged from the Time Machine and climbed towards the farm.

Lesperance looked at his wristwatch. "60 seconds until Simon crosses our path."

Johnson raised his gun and aimed towards the road that led to the house. A black man emerged from nowhere and started running. He ran as fast as he could.

Johnson shot.

He fell over. The man was dead.

There was a scream.

2 boys, a woman, and a man ran over to the body.

"Damn you Johnson! Damn your entire damn family! What is it with your family and missing your shots! There is Simon now!" Travis screamed.

Along the road a man was sprinting through the brush with 3 men chasing after him.

"Don't you know who that was?! That was a free slave named Jim. He becomes the 4th great grandfather of the founder of the New Modern Space Program of 2051! If it were not for him, well, who knows what happens!"

Johnson ran away. He ran in fear to the Time Machine. The others came running after him, shouting.

"You better hope you didn't blow it too badly; else I'll kill you, just like I did that Eckels guy," Mr. Travis said.

Travis nodded at Lesperance. Lesperance entered the return date and they went flying back through time.

They all climbed out of the Machine.

"Everything looks the same," Mr. Travis said hesitantly.

"Lucky bastard," Lesperance mumbled.

"Just for all the trouble he just caused though Imma pop 'im in the leg," Kramer said.

Kramer approached Johnson, who was running as fast as he could away.

Johnson trips, landing on his face. "No! Please don't! I beg of you!" Johnson pleads as blood drips down from his forehead.

There was a sound of thunder.

Johnson began to scream in agony as a low humming sound grew near to the building.

"What on Earth is that sound?" Billings asked as he approached the entrance to the building.

The low humming sound grew into an intense blast of noise. Suddenly there was a bright flash of light.

As the light faded and everyone began to regain their vision, half of the building was gone. All that remained in its stead were 2 charred corpses.

"What was that?!" Lesperance screamed.

Off in the distance were airships with giant beams of light shooting down from them. Under the beam of light was a faint trail of dust.

Mr. Travis walked over to Johnson, who was now unconscious. "What did you do?"

In another flash they were all gone.


End file.
